Stowaway in Time

she owed him an apology.
No, the day he broke her wrist canceled any debt she owed him.
Still, she was grateful for the tool. The saw attachment was small, but sharp. It took some elbow grease, but she sliced through a Y shaped branch. Gathering her three sticks, she hurried back to Jesse. Not wanting to get lost, she hadn’t gone far, but it had taken her a while to find suitable candidates and he had fallen asleep, his head resting on his rolled-up blanket. She hated to wake him, but could never put up this so-called tent without his help.
“Jesse.” She shook his shoulder. “Wake up. I need your help.” When he didn’t respond, she shook harder.
His eyes opened and he gazed at her without recognition.
“I found the sticks,” she said. “What’s the next step?”
He blinked, then sat up. The movement caused a coughing fit. Once he caught his breath, he told her to dig two holes. “Plant the two forked sticks and support the ridge between them. Like this.” He pulled out a pocketknife and began scraping a hole in the dirt.
Diamond placed one end of the ridgepole next to Jesse and knelt by the other end. Choosing the largest blade from her multi-tool, she copied his actions. After securing the uprights, they set the pole in the slots and draped the canvas over it. They stretched the material into a triangle shape and secured it with pegs hammered into the ground. Jesse laid his blanket beneath their crude shelter.
“I don’t think we should chance a fire.”
A fire sounded nice, but she wasn’t sure she could build one, so she didn’t argue.
“That means cold rations again. No salt pork.”
Recalling the strong-smelling pack of mystery meat, Diamond decided that wasn’t such a bad thing. She took a bite of apple. “You should try to eat something, too.”
Jesse reached for a Johnnycake and nibbled at it. They washed the meager meal down with water from Jesse’s canteen.
“We will reach the lake tomorrow and can refill it,” Jesse said, perhaps sensing Diamond’s anxiety.
Drink water straight from the lake? She forced a smile. What other choice did they have? She hoped they would find the rafts, but the lake was several miles long.
“We’d better turn in.” Jesse’s voice sounded strained.
“It’s a little awkward, isn’t it?” Diamond saw no reason to ignore the elephant in the room… or the tent, in this case. “Think of me as a fellow soldier.”
“I’ve heard tales of women disguising themselves as men and joining the army. I thought you were one of them when I first saw you, although I knew you were a girl.”
“Because of how I’m dressed?” Although many people had accused her of acting like a man, no one had ever said she dressed like one. “It’s more practical to wear, um, trousers, than long skirts.”
“And you’re a practical young woman.”
He made it sound like a compliment. Usually men found her straightforwardness something to mock or fear. “Exactly. So we will go to sleep, no muss, no fuss, and save our strength for tomorrow.”
“I won’t argue.” He stretched out on one side of the blanket.
Diamond took a deep breath. Just because it was the sensible thing to do didn’t mean it was easy. She lay down next to him and pulled the top cover over their bodies. Jesse still radiated heat and she could feel him shivering. He needed a warm bed, but what more could they do? Perhaps they should have taken their chances with the Union Army. They might have given Jesse some rudimentary medical care and allowed her to travel in the wake of the troops. But what then? They would have sent Jesse to a prisoner of war camp and she would have been no closer to finding her way home.
Cold seeped through the blanket and rocks dug into her soft tissue, but she’d walked all day, supporting Jesse for much of it. It didn’t take long for sleep to claim her.

Six


Chapter 6
A bird chirping overhead woke Diamond from a deep sleep. For a moment, she wasn’t sure where she was or why she was sleeping on the hard ground. The barren tent walls and the muttering of the man beside her brought it all back. She was in the nineteenth century, far from everyone and everything she knew, traveling across war-torn countryside in the desperate hope of finding the wily pair responsible for getting her into this mess.
She slipped from the tent and took care of immediate personal needs. Stakeouts were bad enough, having to rely on the nearest gas station restroom, but peeing in the woods sucked.
The sun shone brightly, burning off the morning chill. Had Jesse been coherent, she was sure he would have insisted on them leaving before now. She dug into her backpack and pulled out an energy bar and her last water bottle. She ate, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her face.
She could leave. Head north, take her chances on running into the army and make her way to Ste. Genevieve. Anne lived there in the twenty-first century and that was the only clue Diamond had to find her in the nineteenth. Jesse wasn’t her responsibility. He would either escape the Union search net or get captured. Or die. Death, from the sound of his cough, was a real possibility.
Much as she liked him, it was nothing to do with her. She’d only met the man yesterday. But then she’d persuaded him to come with her. Had she not fallen into the time-traveling vortex, he’d now be a prisoner and probably under the care of a doctor. An incompetent nineteenth-century doctor, but someone more qualified to treat him than she was. Or they might have thrown him into a cell and left him to rot. Union doctors probably treated Union soldiers before addressing the needs of prisoners.
She heaved a sigh. Who was she kidding? She would not leave him. Maybe she was afraid to be